CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - State schools Superintendent Cindy Hill will have to wait longer in her effort to regain control of the Wyoming Department of Education.
Laramie County District Judge Thomas Campbell decided Tuesday not to issue an order immediately reinstating Hill’s former duties.
“I just think it’s my responsibility to be sure on the law before the judicial branch of government steps into the executive and legislative branch’s job,” Campbell said.
Hill’s attorney, Robert DiLorenzo, had asked Campbell to order that the superintendent be immediately reinstated.
“We want constitutional compliance as quickly as possible,” DiLorenzo said after the hearing. “And what’s happening is we’re not getting it as quickly as possible.”
State Attorney General Peter Michael said Campbell’s decision shouldn’t cause much of a delay.
“We’re going to move this case expeditiously in the proper manner under the rules of civil procedure,” Michael said.
In January, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that a 2013 law that removed the elected superintendent as department head was unconstitutional. Legislators enacted the law, which replaced the superintendent with a director appointed by the governor, after complaints about Hill’s performance. Hill then filed a lawsuit to get her duties restored.
The Supreme Court said the law left the superintendent with too few duties but left it up to the district court to decide how the lawsuit should be resolved.
The state wants to go through the law and analyze which duties should be returned to the superintendent and which ones might not have to be assigned to the superintendent.
DiLorenzo argued that all the superintendent’s duties should be immediately restored to the way they were before the law was enacted. Any future changes in duties would have to be done by the Legislature, he said.
In addition, he said, the Supreme Court made it clear that the law is unconstitutional and the superintendent should have all her former duties restored as quickly as possible.
But Campbell disagreed that the Supreme Court decision went beyond only answering whether the law as a whole was constitutional.
“I don’t take hints from the Supreme Court, I take answers,” he said. “So I got the answer.”
Campbell said he had a responsibility to be careful when it comes to declaring an entire law void, as DiLorenzo urged.
“I think that’s not enough caution for me,” he said. “I want to be cautious about this.”
On the other hand, Campbell said that he wants to resolve the matter as quickly as possible and that he doesn’t want to do anything that “turns me into the Legislature.”
Under the schedule set up by Campbell, attorneys for the state to file written analyses by next Monday on whether any parts of the law are constitutional. DiLorenzo would have a week to file a response, and the state another week to rebut the response.
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